"If more of us valued food and cheer and song over hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." - J.R.R. Tolkien

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

On the Coffee Table: Kafka on the Shore

Title: Kafka on the Shore
Author: Haruki Murakami

Kafka on the Shore is really two stories intertwined. In the first, teenage Kafka Tamura runs away from home in Tokyo to escape a difficult relationship with his father and find his long-lost mother and sister. In the second, the aging Nakata follows a calling of his own which he doesn't even understand. Both paths lead to Takamatsu on the island of Shikoku, a city I have visited myself. Unfortunately my most prominent memory of the trip was getting brutally ill. Kafka's story is a mix of Sophocles and John Irving with a touch of surrealism. Nakata's is that of Buddhist pilgrimage.

A library plays a prominent role in the novel, particularly Kafka's thread. Libraries have become a big thing in our family, too. Our daughter (14) went on a job shadow at a local college library. Historically, she has been shy about expressing dreams for her own future but walking into that big building entirely devoted to books was definitely a wide-eyed, cathedral moment for her. We just got back from a family trip to Europe and libraries were a major theme, along with oysters and ice cream. We visited four in total: the British Library and the Wellcome Collection in London; the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinbrugh.

Music is important to the book, too. Nakata's disciple Hoshino, a truck driver by profession, has an unexpected love affair with Beethoven's Archduke Trio. Kafka listens to loads of different music over the course of his story but Schubert's Sonata in D Minor gets the deepest discussion.

Definitely a fun read and my favorite Murakami so far. The story is weird but not over the top - just enough to draw you away from realism from time to time. Not as much eye-popping prose as in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (reflection here) but I found Kafka more captivating.

6 comments:

Gosh I wish I could read more (the brain will not work) But this sounds very good.So envious of your library visits. On what is becoming (now) my last visit to the UK we went on a Grand Tour of every London museum I have wanted to see. Walked a million miles. Japanese Son was so happy to be my guide, he was at Oxford at the time. I miss traveling.